Mikayla Schmidt, a Grade 2 student at ![]()
Teneo Online School, is South Africa’s
youngest author. Schmidt published her book, Harvest Day, just before her 7th
birthday in 2021 and was later recognised at the 4th ![]()
The AfriCAN Honoree Authors’
Awards which celebrates and encourages African literacy.
Mikayla (now 8) is a bookworm by nature and loves learning, but everything about
this book happened by chance.
How it started
“We went to the monthly Urban Farmer’s market where a woman named Barbara
Lawrence-Strydom was harvesting organic vegetables in a greenhouse. Mikayla’s
always been interested in growing vegetables and offered to help,” says Annie
Schmidt, Mikayla’s mother.
Seeing how passionate Mikayla was, it was Barbara who challenged her to write a
book about them. It turns out that Barbara was involved in the AfriCAN Child Your
Time is Now organisation which hopes to birth 1 million children authors on the
African continent.
“As soon as we got home, Mikayla immediately started drawing and planning her
book and we had fun turning the vegetables into characters,” continues Schmidt.
The next morning the family went back to the greenhouse, where Mikayla handed
Barbara the 10-page, handmade and paper-folded book which “blew her away”
and two months later, she let the family know that a publisher was interested in it.
“I liked writing about each vegetable and turning them into cartoon characters. My
favourite one is the dancing avocado,” says Mikayla.
Encouraging the pursuit of passions
Mikayla’s parents believe that children are at their most creative when they are
younger, so it’s important to nurture this and encourage them to pursue their
passions. Mikayla comes from an active family and loves to swim, dance and is a
three-time Jiu-jitsu champion. Finding a structured, real school that still offers
flexibility was really important to the family as it provides her with the time and
creative space to be adventurous outside of school – like with her book.
Mikayla’s older cousin has been a Teneo student for five years, so the family had
first-hand knowledge that Teneo is a real school, simply online. Her favourite
subjects are maths and, unsurprisingly, language. If she’s not playing sport or
being sociable, you’ll find Mikayla reading in her spare time (she has over 200
books in her room).
“Both Mikayla’s vocabulary and general knowledge are exceptional for her age,
1 and reading has certainly played a big role in her development,” says Tammy
Ferrier, her Grade 2 IEB teacher.
When asked if she plans to release any more books in future, Mikayla says we’ll
have to wait and see. “Right now, I’m just enjoying reading books but I am very
proud of my achievement,” she says.
